A Cup of Blood

by Troy A Hill

  My demon was attack bite and feed. She wasn’t concerned with staying safe from long silver knives. I was. Don’t misunderstand, I’d love to get my hands on one of those knives. I could wield them as well as, or better than these cretins. Holding silver wasn’t the issue. Getting cut by it was. I wanted to make sure I took no more wounds when I fed on him.

  Then the weight of the world fell on me.

  Deodamnitus! I said it in Latin, Saxon, and every other language I could think of.

  I smelled it again. That damned silver knife. And onions. His breath hit me as we tumbled to the ground. My demon sensed human blood. And not just the one on the horse. Why, though, did it have to be these humans? The damned Witch Hunters. The smelly one must have jumped from a tree and landed on me.

  I squirmed away, but his blade cut across my left arm. Another gash that would be difficult to heal.

  I thought of unleashing my demon and let her go at him. He had given up the right to a fair exchange when he held a knife at my throat. That thought of releasing her gave her even more control over my body. Damn! Not yet.

  I snarled. My fangs bared. My demon shot my arm up and grabbed him around the neck to pull him toward our waiting fangs. That earned me another gash. We jerked as the silver slashed our skin.

  Get back in your cage! I pushed hard to regain control. Until I got rid of that silver blade, I needed to be in charge of my body. She wasn't subtle and didn't use strategy. She'd just get us cut again. Those silver blades could do a lot more damage while my demon raged and fed. Damage I'd need a lot of blood to heal. More than he and his two friends could provide. The wolves might end up on my demon's dinner list.

  Onion Breath had enough brawling skills to make my life difficult right then. And, he had help.

  The third Witch Hunter, the hunchbacked one, made my plan to disarm Onion Breath very unlikely. He darted out and tried to loop a thin rope around my legs while Onion Breath and I rolled around. I could either concentrate to avoid the knife or to keep my legs free. When I tried to do both, I earned another slice.

  One of the young wolves darted in, and Hunchback kicked him hard in the head. The wolf tumbled away with a yelp. I reached out to Greyback. He was still behind us. Perhaps five minutes away. Mother, the younglings and I were on our own until then. Another yelp let me know the young Witch Hunter on horseback had scored a hit with his spear. Sounded like Mother. Then the panicked horse scored with a kick and sent the other youngling through the air. He wouldn’t move soon if at all.

  I cursed in every language I could remember. Onion Breath laughed. “Blood Witch,” he breathed in my ear.

  The hunchback had hold of my other leg and pulled my ankles toward each other. I could feel the cord wrapped around the first ankle. It had a weird sense to it. Then I knew.

  Silver threads were woven into the cord. Curse them to Hades and back!

  If he got my legs tied, I'd have to break the rope. If I did, the silver in it was a big problem. I had to concentrate on the battle and keep my legs from getting caught. That gave Onion Breath the opening he waited for. His blade slid to my throat. I'm rather attached to my head and didn't want to lose it. The true death awaited me if he did enough damage there.

  “Stop fighting, or die here.”

  The third guilder was coming. I could smell the blood in all three. I could hear their hearts beat, and blood pulse in their veins. My demon was almost in control. I had tapped the reserves of my energy too far.

  I had two choices. Surrender to these cretins and try to escape later, or let the locks off the demon. I had done that once before, and I shuddered at the memory. If I survived the initial fight with them, I’d wake a week from now amid whatever village was close by. Dead would litter the surrounding ground. People my demon would have killed with my hands, and my teeth. If they didn't run, my new wolf friends would be among the dead. I’d have become the monster the Witch Hunters claimed I was. An icy chill grabbed my spine and shook my body.

  Onion Breath chuckled. He must have interpreted my shiver as acquiescence and fear.

  I went with that. Alive, and with my head, and my wolf friends close by, and I might escape.

  Mother hid in the scrub close by, injured and bleeding, but alive. One pup was with her. The other pup lay still after the kick from the frightened horse. I could sense his mind. That meant he was alive. Greyback ran toward us but wasn't close enough to help.

  The younger one slid a cloth bag over my head. The hunchback finished with my legs and looped the silvered cord around my wrists. They kept my hands in front of me this time. They were thorough. I held out hope they were still amateurs with the tying-up-women skills. I was wrong. They had done this before.

  I wasn’t surprised. That was a tick mark on the enemies ledger I was keeping in my mind. So far, when I got free, their futures didn’t look too pleasant.

  Greyback’s presence flashed into my mind. He was still a few minutes away. I let him know he had wounded pack members to tend to first.

  “Stay silent. Follow me when you can.”

  “We are pack, we run together.”

  9

  Petram

  Onion Breath held me, his silver dagger pressed tight against my throat. The hunchback finished with my hands and legs and pulled the drawstrings of the bag tight around my neck. The young one stayed silent, but his footsteps receded. I assumed he was going for more horses.

  “She looked scared,” the hunchback said as he finished the knot around my hands.

  “Nothing like a silver seax at a witch’s throat to make ‘em behave,” Onion Breath said. I felt him move his knife away. The hunchback pulled me to my feet. I wobbled with my bound ankles. I felt a hand on my arse, groping. Another hand reached from behind and ran over my torso.

  “We’ll play with you later, Witch,” Onion Breath said in a quiet voice against the bag. His breath wheezed against the cloth bag. “You can entertain us… and my knives. We might even let you make a man out of the tiliga there. He’s too soft. We’ll use you to toughen him up.”

  I didn’t have the energy to be afraid. Whatever they did they were likely to do to other women. With my undead strength and speed I could make sure they never got that chance. If I could get my hands on his long knife, they’d never hurt another woman again.

  My blood-demon beat on her mental cage. She screamed for blood, and she could smell Onion Breath’s all too well. I hoped I had the fortitude to keep her caged.

  Onion Breath stepped around me. I tottered and almost fell. “Hey now!” he jerked me upright.

  I could sense a horse nearby. I could hear the blood as it pulsed through the animal’s veins.

  Onion Breath lifted me from behind, one meaty hand gripped each of my thin arms and tossed me onto my belly, across the front of his saddle. I felt the leather creak and groan as he climbed into the saddle. My body landed crosswise, draped in front of him, across the steed’s front shoulders. I flinched as the cold silver of his blade drifted across the back of my neck.

  “No lip, and no fight from you,” he said. “I’ll happily deliver just your head to the Seeker.”

  The gods really did hate me. The night had just gone from bad to cataclysmic. A Seeker of the guild? Here in Britannia?

  The last time I had found a Seeker I had seen what they did to one of my undead brothers. I still shudder every time I remember the haunted gaze in my brother's eyes when we came to rescue him. His eyes were vacant, hollow. His mind would accept whatever pain they carved into him that day. The pain of silver blades was all he knew then. The pain of torture. Each night they gave him barely enough blood to let him heal.

  Onion Breath kicked his horse forward, and we were off through the countryside. They had their prize—me—and I had my fears.

  The rough treatment I would receive from Onion Breath, and the other two was now a secondary concern. If a Seeker was on this island, then the guild must have built a significant presence here. I had only one choice after I left.
It was time to flee Britannia.

  Perhaps an hour had passed, me alone in my thoughts before they stopped. Once my captor with the silver knife had dismounted, he pulled me off his horse and let me fall to the ground. I lay there after I hit the damp, grass. I longed to sink into its embrace and sleep. But, I knew these idiots would just dig me up, and inflict unpleasantries upon me.

  "Light the fire, then tend to the horses," Onion Breath said, to their young accomplice. "We've got some catching up to do with this creature." He pulled me to my knees and knelt beside me. He jerked my head back. I felt the familiar touch of his silver knife at my throat. Had he changed his mind about delivering just my head to the Seeker?

  “My friend will untie your hands,” his noxious breath hissed into my ear. The bag smelled of oats, but the stench of his breath cut through the musty odour of the cloth. “You’ll move them behind your back. Any sudden movements–if you even think about moving funny—you’ll be a head shorter. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I mumbled, the sound muffled by the bag. The demon inside me was hungry, we could sense the pulse in the arm he wrapped across my face to pull my head back.

  “Get that bag off her,” Onion Breath said. I thought he meant the bag on my head. Instead, I felt Hunchback’s knife slide under the strap of my sling bag. Once it dropped, he tied my left hand to my neck, before he untied and moved my right arm behind my back. He tied it to my neck before he moved my left arm behind me. Only then did he tie my wrists together.

  With both hands behind me, Onion Breath kept his knife at my throat but reached back behind me. He jerked my arms upwards. I yelped in pain. He laughed.

  Then I felt Onion Breath’s blade drift from my throat, right before he shoved me onto the ground. He rolled me onto my back and raised my dress above my knees.

  "Hey Tiliga," Onion Breath yelled. That was the Saxon word for the most basic farmhand. He must be someone they hired or recruited.

  Through the course fabric, I could see the yellow light from the campfire flickering off to my right.

  “Hurry with the horses,” my captor yelled. He fluttered my skirts up and down. “She’s ready for you.”

  "No, thank you, sir," their tiliga said, from off to my side. The glance at him I had in the woods had shown me a young man, barely old enough to shave. His two accomplices seemed to want him to have first go at my flesh. Cretins.

  “Pēdīcāre te ipsum!" I muttered, then clamped my mouth shut. The damn demon was pushing, and my control over my mouth was the first to go. I had just told my captor to sodomise himself.

  “Don’t worry, Moecha Putida,” he leaned in and breathed in my ear. Blah, his breath reeked, even with the stale smell of the oat bag to filter it. “There be plenty of time for you to entertain us.” He still had his knife out, and ran its point up my leg, hard enough to draw blood if there had been any left in me.

  Silver sliced my skin.

  My demon screamed.

  I locked my jaw shut and just hissed with the pain. Idiot, Maria! Your mouth will be the end of you.

  The two guilders laughed. Their footsteps retreated toward where I could see a warm glow of light filter through the oat sack.

  Footsteps crunched to my left. The tiliga must have returned. His steps got closer and drifted right by me. I stayed still, not wanting to give my tormentors any reason to use their silver knives on me.

  A breeze stirred around my legs. The apprentice had flipped my dress to cover my thighs as he passed. It was still too early to tell, but the tiliga had earned points on the positive side of his ledger.

  “What’s her name again?” the Hunchback teased. “Your girl… the one you want to marry, what’s her name?”

  "Bethan," was his short, curt reply. His tone told me he had been teased about her by these two cretins many times before.

  "How will you know how good Bethan is if you don't try the meat we find along the way?" On my mental tally, Onion Breath's cretin marks climbed higher and higher.

  “Everywhere we go, you’re too timid. Didn’t even want to try that farmer’s daughter… was it one or two farm stops before we found out about Syram?” He cleared his throat and spit, in my direction.

  “A witch like her,” he said, “she don’t deserve nice. She’s fair game. You can have all sorts of fun with them witches. She’s just going to die… eventually. I ain’t ever heard of a Seeker keeping one alive for long.”

  The young man stayed quiet.

  “When you going to ask your girl to marry you?” The Hunchback asked. “Or did you just want slap and tickle when her father’s not looking.”

  “I need land first,” the tiliga said. He kept his voice soft, but my undead hearing was good enough to catch his words. “I want to give her a good home, not just a cot in my parent’s house. She deserves better than we got now.”

  "That's why you're here with us," Onion Breath said. "You do well by the guild, and the guild will take care of you." He must have tossed another log on the fire as he spoke. Coals crunched, and wood thunked off to my side, as the glow through the oat sack shifted and wobbled.

  My captors kept their conversation going. I had hoped they'd drift off to sleep by the time Greyback showed up. I chanced a slow move and rolled onto my side to relieve the pressure on my arms. That elicited a grunt from Onion Breath, who came to check my bonds. He grabbed my wrists and pulled up. I let a little yelp of pain escape.

  “No funny stuff.”

  Keep your mouth shut, Maria!

  “Pass me the satchel bag she had on her.” I could hear Onion Breath pawing through it. Coins in my purse jingled.

  “Drinks are on the witch,” he said as the jingle of coins filtered through the oat sack. If he had been more thorough in his search, he would have found the stash of gold coins I had sewn into the bottom of the bag. But, he wasn’t that interested. There was enough hidden in my satchel for them to get and stay roaring drunk for most of a year.

  “Nothing else but some clothing and an old cup. Here, tie the strap back together. We’ll pass it onto the Seeker when we get back.” At least they hadn’t found Syram’s small Witch Hunter medallion I had hidden deep inside the folds of my cloak. That would have gotten their tempers flaring, and their silver knives flashing.

  Sometime later I sensed Greyback. He snuck in as come as close as possible. He wasn’t alone. The young wolf with green eyes, the one who liked me to ruffle the fur on his head, was with him.

  Greyback sidled through the brush and got close enough to see the campsite. He sensed what I needed. After I blinked, I could see everything through his eyes. I watched the two older Witch Hunters motion for the tiliga to fetch and carry for them. He rolled out their blankets, pushed their packs and saddle bags off to one side of the fire, within easy reach of whoever would sleep on the blankets. On the far side of the fire, away from Greyback, I could see myself in the matted grass, about five paces farther on.

  I needed to find something to help me get out of these ropes. A sharp jagged rock would be great. Now I could see through wolf eyes, and watch my captors, I felt around me, in the grass. I kept my movements small and hoped the others wouldn’t notice.

  The ground I lay on didn’t even have a sharp stick, let alone any rocks. I reached out with my thoughts to both Greyback and the young wolf. I built the image in their minds of a sharp, jagged rock. That request would be a challenge in this part of the countryside. With my own eyes covered, I had to rely on their eyes to find what I needed.

  "You can both sleep," the tiliga's voice jolted me out of my mental conversation with the wolves. I shifted back to observing the campsite through Greyback's eyes. "I'll watch her," the youth volunteered.

  "No chance," Onion Breath said and shook his head as he pulled his blanket around him. "You don't know all of her tricks. She'll roll you, and we'll have to go chase her again. That is if we survive."

  "One of us will stay awake," the hunchback added. He rose and wandered toward me. He rechecked my bonds. At
least he didn't jerk my arms around like his buddy did. "You sure you don't wanna have a go at this?" he said and raised my dress again.

  My demon surged to the front of my mind. My fangs slid out. She had heard a pulse come close. She had to stay locked up, so I pushed hard on the door to her mental cage.

  Through Greyback's eyes, I could see the tiliga shake his head then turn away.

  "You're too soft," the hunchback said. "Tomorrow, you better show us you're tougher. Our report to the Seeker will determine if you get to stay with the guild. Of course, a bad report will send you home sooner to Bethan…"

  "My family… " the tiliga's voice cracked a bit. "… My father has six sons and not enough land for us all." He had his own demons to battle. "Bethan and I…" his voice trailed off.

  I had wondered why the young man was out here with these two. He didn’t seem like the type that would make a career out of being a bully for a bunch of religious zealots.

  But, in the year I'd been travelling Britannia, I'd seen that the people of this land hadn't fared well when the Roman legions pulled out two centuries before. They had reverted to a barter economy. Coins were useless now unless one was at a guesthouse or in a major city.

  If the apprentice was from a rural area, he and his brothers stretched whatever meagre food their parents pulled from their land. A small crofter's farm couldn't support too many generations at once. The youngest sons had to find other work, and apprentice themselves off if they could find a tradesman to take them in. Or head to a monastery.

  “You’ll be making babies, in between chasing witches like this one,” hunchback dropped my skirts around my ankles again. “Tomorrow, show us what you got, or you’ll go home to your girl sooner than you expect.”

  The apprentice slowly nodded. These men were scum if they had to co-opt the young man into going against his own moral code.

  Hunchback limped back to the fire. The other two lay wrapped in their blankets. He sat and just stared into the night. Eventually, soft breathing and the occasional snore came from their direction.